For a number of years I have read posts stating how these ships would be relatively easily to convert to operate conventional fixed wing aircraft.
Now I am reading Parliamentary Defence Committee reports which describe this purchase of the carriers as
The most spectacular example of the procurement system getting it wrong, on the basis of inadequate information, namely the decision regarding the aircraft to be flown from the QE class carriers.
They then criticise the decision to change aircraft from the 'B' variant to the 'C' because
The design of the ship was not easily convertible to accommodate the F-35C. There had been a fundamental misunderstanding, namely that the carriers would be very easy to convert and had been designed for conversion. But that was not true
. (My use of bold and red ink but their words)
They then go into some detail criticising costing and higher pricing but to me they have completely missed the ball.
I would want to know WHY these ships were not designed from the outset to operate with cats and traps, we are a sea faring nation. We led the World in the development of aircraft carriers. We led the way in introducing most of the technology that is being used on all the World's operational fixed wing carriers but we built the largest carriers this country has ever built and decided not to have catapults OR even arrester wires?? During this design stage was there NO option for buying or designing any type of launch system? Did the designers not know the harriers were being scrapped and we were going down a path where the option was either the F-35B or the F-35B. There is no future replacement for that aircraft and once it goes we will be left withn yet another aircraft=less carrier sailing the high seas under the guise of being called a helicopter carrier complete with a nice ski ramp for fans of winter sports?? Don't talk about unmanned aircraft as those being developed for armed carrier operations are all launched by catapult.
Who made the decision and let us see them being made accountable as I still believe those ships should have been designed from the very outset with catapults and once that error had been spotted then convert them to that role or stop building these 'white elephants'
(slightly tongue in cheek anger).
There are scathing attacks on the rotor wing department and the huge problems that are about to land on our flight decks but that is for another fred (thread)